My First Meeting With Rose
by cheri1
Summary: Tenth Doctor with Rose. A story of a chance meeting in a playground when the Doctor and Rose were four years old.


A/N: This is for a fanfic contest on Deviant Art. The challenge is…Theme: Doctor/Rose as pre-schoolers. Maybe the Doctor and Rose meet at recess on the playground, or something like that.

"Ah, father, do we have to?"

Dorium smiled at his four year old son, Merzet. Merzet was standing in front of him, pouting, because he was going to take a trip with his father to Earth.

"I am meeting someone there, my son, and I want you to come with me and observe the humans. As a future Time Lord it will be your job one day to watch over them and their history."

"But I want to go play with Koschei," Merzet whined.

"There's plenty of time for play later. Now get dressed in the clothes I provided for you so we can go."

"Alright," Merzet mumbled as he shuffled away towards his room.

XOXOXOXOXOXO

Merzet looked down at the odd clothes his father had given him. He was wearing blue jeans, a red t-shirt with a football on it and white socks and trainers. His father was dressed in jeans, a white t-shirt and white socks and trainers. He stood at his console in his TARDIS. The interior was a stark white with tiny roundels. The console was made of metal and the central column was unattached to the ceiling and moved up and down inside the hexagonal structure. Other than that, the room was bare.

"This is what humans wear? This doesn't feel right," Merzet whined while he stood next to his father.

His father smiled at him.

"I know the clothes the humans wear are a bit restrictive, son. But we must look like them so we don't draw attention to ourselves."

"What are we doing anyway?" Merzet asked.

"I told you, I'm meeting someone," Dorium said.

"Who?"

"Just an old friend," he replied and left it at that.

Merzet knew he wasn't going to get anything else out of his father so he decided to be quiet for the moment. He hated the feel of the clothes and he tugged at them in annoyance. Gallifreyan clothes were looser and allowed more freedom of movement. This was his first trip to Earth but he had a feeling he wouldn't like it if humans dressed like this.

The TARDIS stopped and powered down. Merzet followed his father to the door after he used a lever on the console to open the inner doors. They parted silently and Dorium opened the outer doors which resembled the inside of tree bark since the TARDIS disguisted itself as a huge tree. They stepped out and Merzet looked around. Around him was green grass and plenty of trees and humans who were lying on the grass or sitting on blankets.

"Where are we, father?" Merzet asked.

"We are in a place called London and this is Hyde Park," Dorium said. "Come."

They walked until they reached a playground area. A circular fence surrounded it with a wooden gate. Dorium opened the gate and they went inside. Inside there was a concrete surface and several types of playground equipment. Children laughed and played on them and Merzet was fascinated by the humans who looked so much like Gallifreyan in appearance.

"Go and play, my son. I'll be nearby," he said to him.

Merzet watched while he walked to the other side of the enclosure. He was headed towards a wooden bench. Sitting on the bench was a young woman with long brown hair that fell down to the middle of her back. She was wearing a white sundress with matching white sandals. The woman noticed Dorium and smiled and waved at him. She stood up when Dorium reached her and Merzet's eyes widened when they hugged briefly before sitting back down together.

While he was watching, he felt something bump against his right foot. He looked down and saw a pink plastic ball rolling away from him. He turned and watched while a blonde girl about his age ran up and retrieved it. She was wearing jeans and a pink t-shirt with Disney's Cinderella on it. Her shoes were the same color pink as her shirt. Merzet watched while the girl turned to him and studied him for a moment while she held the ball to her chest.

"Hello," the girl said.

"Hello," Merzet said.

The girl came closer and looked him over.

"I'm Rose," she finally said. "Wanna play with me?"

"Okay," Merzet said.

"What's your name?" Rose asked.

"Merzetellazondaleptos."

Rose giggled.

"That's not a proper name," she said.

"Is so," Merzet said indignantly.

"I can't say it," Rose said.

"My father calls me Merzet."

"Okay, I can say that one," Rose said. "That's still a silly name."

Merzet shrugged, unsure what to say to that. Rose turned and looked over her shoulder, telling him to follow her. Merzet followed her to a bench by the gate where an adult woman sat while reading a book. Her blonde hair was similar to Rose's except it was pulled back away from her face in a ponytail. She was wearing tan slacks, a white t-shirt and a blue jean jacket.

"This is my mum," Rose said, pointing to her as the woman looked up from her book. "Mum, this is Merzet. He wants to play."

"Merzet?" the woman said, frowning. "Never heard that name before. Are you from another country?"

"Yes," Merzet said, remembering what his father told him about answering questions. "I live very far away from here."

"You sound English though," the woman said. "Never mind though, I'm Jackie, it's nice to meet you, Merzet. Rose, behave, yeah?"

Rose nodded and told Merzet to follow her as they walked away from Jackie. She went back to reading her book while Rose led him to an open area. She told him to stop and she walked a further five feet from him before she tossed the ball to him. Merzet caught it and looked at it, fascinated by the feel of it and the pink color.

"Throw it back to me!" Rose said.

Merzet tossed it back to her and they threw it back and forth for about ten minutes. While they were playing, Merzet kept glancing at his father. His father was still sitting with the woman and he could see they were holding hands while they chatted. He wondered who the woman was; he'd never seen her before. At one point, he noticed their faces were very close to each other. He was so busy watching them that he didn't catch the ball and it rolled past him.

"Oi, thickhead, the ball is that way!"

Merzet looked at Rose and saw her pointing over his shoulder. He turned, saw the ball rolling towards the see saw and ran to retrieve it. He picked it up and carried it back but Rose walked up to him and told him she wanted to do something else. Merzet handed her the ball and they walked over to the swings. Merzet stood back for a moment. He'd never seen anything like it before and he wasn't sure what to do. Rose walked over to him.

"You don't wanna swing with me?" she said.

Merzet nodded, figuring if he said he'd never seen swings before, Rose would make fun of him again. They found two empty swings near the end and Rose sat her ball down by the metal support pole before she got on. Merzet watched what she did and imitated it and was pleased by the wind in his hair and the back and forth motion. He wished his best friend Koschei could see him now. He knew his friend would probably enjoy it as much as he did.

"Are you staying in London?" Rose asked as they swung back and forth.

"No, my father's visiting someone," he said, pointing to his father.

He watched while Rose hopped off her swing, picked up her ball and headed towards him.

"Wait!" Merzet said, following her. "They're doing something private!"

"You met my mum, I wanna meet your dad," Rose said over her shoulder.

Merzet didn't know what his father would do but Rose seemed determined to meet him so he followed behind him. He hoped his father wouldn't be angry with him for failing to interrupt whatever was going on with the mystery woman. But to his relief his father and the woman stopped talking and smiled at Rose when she came up to them.

"Hello, I'm Rose Tyler and I'm playing with Merzet," she said to him.

"Hello, Rose Tyler, I'm Dorium," Dorium said warmly.

"And I'm Felicia," the woman said. "It's nice to meet you.'

"It's nice to meet you too," Rose said, using the manners her mother taught her. "Are you leaving and going home? You're not staying here in London?" she said to Dorium.

"I'd love to stay, child, but I'm afraid that my son and I must leave," Dorium said.

Merzet noticed Felicia looked extremely sad at hearing that. He wondered how his father knew her since he'd never seen her before. Dorium looked at his son, winked and told him and Rose to go and play so they could talk. Merzet walked up to Rose and took her hand. Rose looked at the hand for a moment before the two of them walked off towards the slide.

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Donna sat across from the Tenth Doctor in the TARDIS kitchen. She was listening while he told her the story of his first meeting with Rose.

"So after that, we played for about an hour before my dad finally told me it was time to go," the Doctor said.

"That's so sweet," Donna said. "So did you realize who she was when you first asked her to travel with ya?"

"No. Because that was centuries later and many things had happened since then. But the name Rose Tyler sounded so familiar to me and then I remembered where I heard it before and remembered Jackie. Of course Jackie was younger then. I didn't think I'd ever see them again so I just forgot about meeting her on the playground."

"Did she remember?" Donna said.

"I don't think so and I didn't mention it at all. She probably thought I was just some weird child she played with one day and forgot about it afterwards."

"And what about the mysterious woman?" Donna said.

"She was my mum."

"Your mum? She was human?" Donna said, shocked.

"Yeah. My father fell in love with her during a visit to Earth. At first he pretended to be human but when he fell in love with her, he revealed who he was. Unfortunately, humans weren't permitted to live on Gallifrey so she had to wait for him to make return visits. They finally decided to have a child and my father took a sample of her DNA back to Gallifrey and put it in a machine called a loom. The looms created our kind because Gallifreyans are sterile. But he programmed the loom so I was more Gallifreyan than human so I could become a Time Lord and regenerate. But he never told me about her until I was an adult because he figured I would want my mum to come live with us on Gallifrey and also because I'd constantly badger him to go back and see her. And their mating was frowned upon by most Gallifreyans so he kept it a secret so I wouldn't accidentally tell someone and cause scandal."

"Is she still alive? Do you see her?"

"I visit her from time to time but always by myself because I want to keep that part of my life private from my companions."

Donna nodded. She had a thought and a grin spread over her face.

"So Merzet is your real name then?" Donna said.

"No, it's an alias I used with strangers. A Time Lord's name is hidden from all but the most closest of family members and we're taught to use an alternate name. My real name is hard to pronounce, at least for humans it is. So nope, you didn't just learn my real name."

"Blast, I was hoping I found out your greatest secret," Donna said.

"Nah," the Doctor teased. "Besides, I'm used to being called Doctor now so I consider that my real name."

Donna made a face.

"To each his own I suppose," she said.

"Yup. To each his own. So…now that I've wasted tea time telling you a tale about meeting Rose, let's go out and do something exciting. Up for it?"

"Ready when you are…Merzet."

She chuckled when the Doctor gave her a withering look. She stood up, ruffled his hair fondly before heading out the door. The Doctor sat there for a moment, a slight smile on his face while he remembered Rose as a four year old. Then relegating that memory back into the recesses of his mind, he stood up, stretched and casually walked out the kitchen door.

THE END.


End file.
